“Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.”

―

Emily Dickinson

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Celebrities almost seem like they can’t win.

If they are smart, they get dismissed as some airhead out of touch overpaid cretin.

If they are silent, people wonder why they don’t use their situation to further some causes.

Even if they are not so smart and sincerely make an effort to do the right things and stand up for the right things, they are called disingenuous & hypocrites.

Sigh.

How unfortunate.

Maybe it’s because throughout my college years I rubbed elbows with dozens and dozens of musicians, athletes, actors and ‘stars’ in Los Angeles that I have never really understood the whole star struck thing … just as I have never really understood the dismissal thing.

…… dispersion of general population/people ……..

I have always found them to be … well … people. I have found them to be representative of the general ‘intellectual to idiot’ dispersion of the total population – for every one intellectual there would most likely be two idiots <and the bulk lying somewhere in between>.

I have found them delightful, disappointing, dicks, charming, offensive, insightful, vapid and interested in only their craft as well as interested in everything.

Basically they are you & I with a different career.

That said.

When a celebrity speaks I listen … just as I do with everyone else.

If they have something meaningful to say … I appreciate it <do not dismiss it>.

If they have only meaningless drivel to say, I ignore it <but I don’t damn the entire celebrity world for one cretin’s words>.

I say all that because when celebrities get it right … they really get it right.

And I think that is because of who they are and what they do and where they are <in a brighter spotlight than most of us will ever encounter>.

Let me share two completely different “got it so right I wish I could shake their hands.”

First.

Harry Styles. One of the boys in the boy band One Direction. Embarrassingly I couldn’t have told you which one he was until I googled him.

But now I got him pictured.

Anyway.

He is doing a solo album and he was asked if he feels any pressure to cater his solo career to an older, more adult crowd rather than to the typical One Direction young female audience.

Who’s to say that young girls who like pop music – short for popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy?

<the second quote is spectacular … the kind of thing we wish all our 20something sons would say>

He is 23. He has been wildly globally popular since he was 17. He has more money than 99% of us will ever see. And he got it right. He got it right twice in one interview.

I won’t buy his album <nor any One Direction albums> but I will most likely listen to him a little more closely in the future.

We should wish all our young men had such a good role model.

Second.

David K. Harbour. He is in some show named Stranger Things which I have no clue what it is about but was embarrassed to find out that I have actually used some gifs in some of my posts from the show itself.

Anyway.

He gave a fairly passionate speech at some awards show right after the first Trump travel ban announcement.

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No society, not even one as rich and fortunate as the United States has been, is guaranteed a successful future. When early Americans wrote things like “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” they did not do so to provide bromides for future bumper stickers. They lived in a world in which authoritarian rule was the norm, in which rulers habitually claimed the powers and assets of the state as their own personal property.

“I would just like to say, in light of all that’s going on in the world today, it’s difficult to celebrate the already celebrated Stranger Things, but this award from you who take your craft seriously and earnestly believe, like me, that great acting can change the world is a call to arms from our fellow craftsmen and women to go deeper. And through our art to battle against fear, self-centeredness and exclusivity of our predominately narcissistic culture and through our craft to cultivate a more empathetic and understanding society by revealing intimate truths that serve as a forceful reminder to folks that when they feel broken and afraid and tired they are not alone.

We are united in that we are all human beings and we are all together on this horrible, painful, joyous, exciting and mysterious ride that is being alive.

Now, as we act in the continuing narrative of ‘Stranger Things,’ we 1983 midwesterners will repel bullies. We will shelter freaks and outcasts, those who have no home. We will get past the lies. We will hunt monsters and when we are at a loss amidst the hypocrisy and the casual violence of certain individuals and institutions, we will, as per Chief Jim Hopper, punch some people in the face when they seek to destroy the weak and the disenfranchised and the marginalized. And we will do it all with soul, with heart, and with joy. We thank you for this responsibility.

Thank you.”

——

Stranger Things acceptance Speech

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First.

Spectacular. And spectacularly right on all issues.

Second.

But what puts this one on the Bruce “celebrity got it right’ list is the fact he wove in all the regular hollow snide remarks we make about his industry within his speech … acknowledging what he is part of and all the while acknowledging what any moral, ethical, upstanding American citizen should feel & believe.

It wasn’t preaching but rather explaining the issue and how his career and industry can impact the issue. And you know what?

By doing that he permitted people who actually listened to think for a minute …. “hmmmmmmmmmm … why couldn’t I do that also?”

I seriously doubt I will ever watch Stranger Things but he reminded me I shouldn’t tune out a celebrity, an actor or actress, an athlete or any ‘star’ because … well … sometimes they get it right.

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“We humans are naturally disposed to worship gods and heroes, to build our pantheons and valhallas. I would rather see that impulse directed into the adoration of daft singers, thicko footballers and air-headed screen actors than into the veneration of dogmatic zealots, fanatical preachers, militant politicians and rabid cultural commentators.”